The Germans certainly enjoy their beer and it is no surprise that it is brewed to very stringent standards, which date back to the so-called Reinheitsgebot from the Middle Ages.

Beer in Germany is mainly sold in bottles which get re-cycled up to 20 times

After over 20 years of living and working in Calcot, Brian Hicks now works in Benrath, a pleasant suburb of Reading’s twin town, Düsseldorf.

Here he sends his second postcard about life in our German twin town:

Successful start to the season for Fortuna

Fortuna Düsseldorf have kicked off the 2012/2013 football season in Germany’s premier league, the Bundesliga, for the first time in 15 years after its promotion at the end of last season.

Fortuna bought many new players in to boost its squad. It has sold over 31,000 season tickets already, compared with 16,600 last year and just 1,500 the year before that.

The first game was away to FC Augsburg on 25 August and Fortuna emerged as convincing 2-0 winners. The second game was at home to neighbouring Borussia Mönchengladbach on 1 September, which resulted in a 0-0 draw.

Germans and their beer

The Germans certainly enjoy their beer and it is no surprise that it is brewed to very stringent standards, which date back to the so-called Reinheitsgebot from the Middle Ages. This specified that beer could only be made from water, hops and barley.

The most popular German beer is Pils or Pilsner. This lager-like beer is named after the Czech town of Pilsen that first developed it in 1842, albeit with the help of a German brewer. It is light, refreshing and best served as draught beer, although the bottles are also quite tasty. Today, the Czechs are the biggest beer drinkers in the world, with 132 litres consumed per head of population, followed by Germany at 107 litres.

The Germans are recycling fanatics and beer is sold chiefly in bottles that get reused over 20 times. Germans tend to buy their beer in crates of 24 bottles of either 500ml (nearly 90% of a pint) or 330 ml (about half a pint) capacity. You pay a deposit on the crate and each bottle, which you get back when you return the crate.

What is a refreshing surprise for any visiting Englishman like me is that beer in Germany is about half the price of that in the UK. However, in German pubs beer is about the same price as the UK.

Most leading German breweries have retained their independence, unlike the UK. However, some have been acquired by leading international beer companies, such as Holsten (by Carlsberg) and Becks (by InBev).

Wheat beers are mainly brewed in Bavaria and sold as either clear or cloudy versions, the latter with yeast still in it. Nearly all wheat beers have a non-alcoholic version, which sell well throughout Germany as they are rather tastier than their barley equivalents.

Bavaria has a very large hop-growing area, so it is perhaps no surprise that the world’s reputedly oldest brewery, Weihenstephan, dating back to 1040, is in the middle of it.

The Germans are not keen on unchilled beers. Perhaps what is closest to an English bitter is Altbier, a dark-brown specialty of breweries in Dusseldorf and the surrounding area. This is served chilled and there are several Kneipen or pubs in Dusseldorf that brew their own Altbier on the premises.

Breweries in the Cologne area make Kölsch (also the word for the local dialect spoken in Cologne), a light beer that is not as bitter as Pils. Not much Altbier is sold in Cologne and very little Kölsch in Dusseldorf, mainly due to the long-standing rivalry between these two cities.

Chancellor's Question Time?

The German parliament, the Bundestag, is considering following the example of the United Kingdom with Prime Minister's Questions. There is nothing equivalent in Germany at the present time and it is widely felt that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is not held directly to account enough in a public arena.

The Germans admire the British practice and feel that something similar could also enliven proceedings in the Bundestag.